A man checks into a weird hotel, meets a lot of weird people, and experiences some weird occurrences. For two hours. Then after a brief attempt at escape (check-out?), he finds himself again sitting in the same chair waiting to check-in.

This is a threadbare scenario from which to build a feature story around; it could have been better served as a short film instead. It isn't hard to achieve a feeling of tension and uneasiness in a film, but it IS hard to sustain those feelings continually for two hours. And it's even harder when all the characters seem to be some kind of archetypic figures rather than actual humans; it makes them all one-dimensional.

Technically, the film is commendable. The bright cinematography goes against what might be the typical choice of dark shadowy lighting for a tale like this and actually assists in establishing the eerie-ness of the location as though the rooms are all under the bright lights of some laboratory. And, thank god, at least the film avoids the trap of using any shaky-cam to establish anxiety (allow me to digress here and interject a personal opinion: Death To Shaky-Cam!).

I'm going to give this film 4 stars because it at least showed some ambition and an attempt to issue something off-beat and not just a run-of-the-mill thriller or pedestrian drama...it didn't succeed in its ambition, but trying is worth some recognition. Although the fact that I checked this film out from my local library and there was no cost on my part to watch it no doubt helped my rating...if I had actually had to pay for a rental of this I likely would have rated it lower.